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Question 1. What is the Passage Type?
Question 2. What is each paragraph about?
Question 3. What is the Organization?
Question 4. What is the Big Idea?
Question 5. What is the author’s purpose?

Wouldn’t it be easier if the essay you were reading had a title?
If it did, you would understand from the start what the main point of the essay is. The writers of the GMAT specifically exclude the title so that it is up to you to decipher the essay.

Why bother wasting so much time trying to figure out the Big Idea?
Most of the GMAT questions, particularly higher skill level questions, aren’t about details, they are about the main idea and its implications. Accordingly, we focus our strategy on finding the author’s point of view and main idea. Everything we teach is oriented around you rapidly identifying the main idea in an essay.

The tone, scope and implications of the main idea usually help you answer more than half of the questions on a given passage. So your objective in reading the passage is to get a handle on the main point and the tone (happy, sad, angry, etc.).

Think about GMAT essays as a riddle. They have just dumped this essay in front of your about some obscure topic without a title and without context discussing some arcane and boring topic. You need to crack the essay to find out what is really going on.

In nearly all GMAT passages, the author will be making an argument of some form. So the author will be saying something worth arguing for, not a simple statement of fact. Don’t expect the main point to be “World War I was fought from 1914 to 1919”. Instead, you might get “World War I was extended by Britain's needless and poorly executed intervention”. That’s a typical GMAT main point. If you think there’s no main point, check again. You probably just didn’t get it.

An author can’t just make a statement like “World War I was extended by Britain's needless and poorly executed intervention” without substantial support. This means that the argument needs all the things to make an argument persuasive:

1) evidence
2) addressing possible counter points
3) subsidiary points, etc.

Once you figure out what the main point is, it is like the rosetta stone; everything suddenly makes sense and you can see what the structure is more clearly. Or, if you aren’t lucky enough to have found the main point, looking at the structure will give you many clues about what it is. The structure of the essay will revolve around the essay’s main point.

When reading the essay aggressively looking for the point, don’t worry too much. The test writers will put up signposts and make it pretty obvious if you know what to look for. If you were writing an essay to prove a point or express a point, wouldn’t you make it pretty obvious what you were trying to say? Only in the most difficult essays does it become very hard to find the Big Idea.

Signposts of the Big Idea:

1. First paragraph, first sentence – will often be a strong indicator. If the first paragraph is more of a background introduction to a subject, such as in a science essay, then the main point will probably be in the second paragraph. In the hardest essays, the main idea will be more difficult to locate and you will have to look closer for it.

2. Last sentence, first paragraph – will often express the main idea since it will be the summary of the first paragraph.

3. Last paragraph, last sentence – will often summarize the argument.

To be frank, putting the main point in these obvious locations would be too easy. If you are a high scorer, you may have to look much more carefully to find the main idea.

4. “Slam on the Brakes Language”
Any odd language or judgmental tone tells you to start reading very closely because the author is about to reveal his point. Any unusual changes in tone signal something very significant. It is like a lie detector test when the pen starts jittering. You know something is going on and the person’s true feelings are being revealed.

“Slam on the Breaks” phrases include:

amazing successful impressive remarkable greatness inadequate invalid unfortunately inefficient leadership competition startling surprising

Here is an example of this type of language:

Nevertheless, the most startling fact about the history of water projects in the United States is the degree to which their shortcomings have been associated with administrative failures. Again and again these shortcomings have proved to be the consequences of inadequate study of water flow, of soil, of factors other than construction technology, and of faulty organization. In 1959, the Senate Select Committee on National Water resources found that twenty different national commissions or committees charged with examining these problems and seeking solutions had emphasized with remarkable consistency the need for coordination among agencies dealing with water.

Any phrase that jumps off the page and stands out in a highly academic essay will be a “Slam on the Breaks” phrase. Once you hear this, your reading pace should also “slam on the brakes”. It is like pulling the emergency break in a car going 50 miles an hour. You should hear the tires squeal as you drop from skimming at 50 miles and hour to 15 miles an hour and begin to read words very carefully to find the author’s point. The odd language signals that the author’s true feelings are being expressed, so read very slowly to fully understand them. Paraphrase these feelings to yourself to be sure you understand them before you go on to the questions.

Polish Up the Big Idea:
Ok, you’ve finished reading the essay, you think you know the Big Idea, and you have an idea about structure. Take a moment to review everything and double check that you have the Big Idea narrowed down.

Question 5: What is the authors purpose? (ADVANCED)